


30 Days of Thranto

by LightRain_09



Category: Star Wars: Thrawn - Timothy Zahn
Genre: 30 day challenge, M/M
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-03
Updated: 2017-11-04
Packaged: 2019-01-28 17:00:14
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 1,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12611200
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LightRain_09/pseuds/LightRain_09
Summary: Filling the prompts from the Star Wars OTP 30 Day Challenge.





	1. Home Planet

**Author's Note:**

> I have taken it upon myself to fill the prompts for the Star Wars OTP 30 Day Challenge created by jediprompts on tumblr. Each chapter's title is the prompt. It will likely be exclusively Thranto, but may possibly trickle into Kylux (because that ship is starting to pull me under). We'll just have to see on that. 
> 
> My aim is to write these as quickly as possible in an attempt to break past my tendency to analyze my writing to death. I do a quick read through when I'm finished, but if I don't catch every error, I apologize. This is about me embracing Pixar's 8th rule and trying to teach myself to "let go even if it's not perfect". I am also aiming to post every day, but with the recent changes in my life, that may not be feasible sometimes. But I'll do my best. 
> 
> I'll include the rating at the beginning of each chapter because it will vary according to the prompt.
> 
> And as always, the normal disclaimer: Thrawn and Eli Vanto do not belong to me.
> 
> Rating for this chapter: G.
> 
> Enjoy!

Eli Vanto felt ridiculous. He stood in the massive main hangar of Csilla’s capitol city, watching as the bay doors slid open with the crack of breaking ice. Long shafts of heatless sunlight stabbed down like needles into the underground facility, and a narrow swath of the planet’s white sky appeared above.

That was something he still wasn’t used to. Lysatra was nothing but deep blue skies for miles, but here everything was white. Even the sky. He saw it so rarely that it always struck him as slightly odd and even a little unnatural.

Of course, with the opening of the bay doors also came a blast of frigid air, so cold that Eli wasn’t entirely convinced his lungs wouldn’t freeze if he had to stand there for too long. It took every ounce of will power he possessed to keep from dancing from foot to foot in some childish attempt to generate heat. He was wrapped in about five layers, from his long, tight fitting under garments to the heavy, fur-lined parka zipped and buttoned up over the top of it all. And he was  _still_ shivering.

He did his best to ignore the Chiss dock workers moving around him. Most of them wore only light jackets, if that. One walked past him who even had his sleeves rolled up. Eli grimaced at no one in particular and brought his gloved hands to his mouth, blowing into them so that some of the hot, moist air bounced back briefly on to his face.

Fortunately, the Chiss had the timing of their bay door opening down to a fine art. The doors had barely locked all the way out when the small shuttle appeared up above, dark and sleek like all of the Chiss ships and designed to descend quickly. Eli watched it navigate down through the hangar doors. As soon as it settled into its dock, the bay doors began to close again, though he hardly took the time to appreciate the efficiency. He was already moving down the long walkway towards the landing pad.

The shuttle door opened before Eli had even gotten half way there, and he nearly missed his next step.  

It had been strange at first, coming to Csilla. As the only human, it had taken him some time to tell most of the Chiss apart, to find the differences in their features that pulled them out as individuals. He had lost Fuoror a few times in a crowd because, for a while, they had all sort of blended together. But the person now standing at the bottom of the shuttle’s ramp, he would have known anywhere. Eli could have picked him out of a thousand. A billion.

_H_ _e_ _hasn’t changed_ , Eli thought. He kept his pace even but he didn't have it in him to slow down. His attention was too focused on  _him_.

The lines of his body, his posture, his bearing... it was all exactly how Eli had remembered every time he had thought of him. With a small laugh, Eli shook himself. Of course he hadn’t changed. It hadn’t been _that_ long since they had seen one another. And yet... everything felt so different. There were times when Eli wasn't even sure how to connect that cadet from Myomar to the person he was now. But Thrawn was a point of familiarity in the midst of a life and universe that Eli had long ago ceased to understand. Welcome. Longed for. And sorely missed.

Eli slowed as he approached. Thrawn’s back was to him and he gave no indication that he was aware of Eli coming up behind him. Eli paused and rose up on his toes a little to glance over his shoulder, smiling at the sight of the data pad in his hands. It brought back a flood of memories, even if the content on the screen was something other than obscure art pieces.

Eli dropped back down, took a careful breath in an attempt to slow his pounding heart, and then he cleared his throat.

Thrawn turned, red eyes widening slightly when they landed on him.

“I was not aware you were here,” he said.

Eli breathed a laugh.

_No. He hasn’t changed much at all._

“Hello to you, too."

Thrawn’s brow knit briefly in confusion, and then understanding seemed to come and he gave Eli a small, apologetic smile.

And that was enough.

In two long strides, Eli reached him, and he felt no qualms at all about pulling him into his arms. Thrawn came willingly, hesitating only a fraction of a second before he returned the embrace. Eli bit his lip as a surge of emotion tried to well up inside him. Damn it, he had promised himself this wouldn’t happen. But it was almost impossible not to feel _something_ when Thrawn’s arms were wrapped around him, pressing him tight against the familiar warmth of his body, and a scent that he had never been able to fully remember was now invading his senses. The ache that Eli hadn’t let himself fully acknowledge for over a year now finally eased, and despite the fact that he was keenly aware of many of the dock worker’s attention flitting towards them, he was not at all ready to let him go.

“Welcome back,” he said, his voice muffled against Thrawn’s shoulder. "You're finally home."

Thrawn's fingers pressed into Eli's back to draw him marginally closer, until Eli began to curse his layers for getting between them as much as they were. When he spoke, his words were warm against Eli’s ear.

“Yes. I believe I am.”


	2. Alien Language

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day 2 of the Star Wars OTP 30 Day Challenge.
> 
> Music: "Forever in my Dreams" by Two Steps From Hell
> 
> Rated G

Love, as it turned out, was nothing like the human stories made it out to be. It hadn’t come crashing into his life, taking over and changing everything he thought he knew. No. Love, at least _his_ love, was quiet. Soft. It had slipped without preamble into existence, spreading and twisting to fill cracks he hadn’t even been aware of and making him feel... whole. But even that was a subtle thing. Simple and unassuming.

Perhaps the most surprising part of it was that there were no reasons. No explanations. No validations. No logical trajectory from the before to the after. It had simply gone from being something that was not to something that _was_. And that simplicity held more beauty than any work of art.

Thrass had once accused him of being emotionally illiterate. He had apologized for it later, seeming ashamed for some reason, and Thrawn had accepted the apology without hesitation. He had never taken much offense to the statement in the first place. It had been an accurate assessment.

Understanding emotions, particularly his own, had never come easily to him. And that had always seemed ironic. He had no trouble at all in tracing the why’s and how’s of another person’s emotional reaction. There was logic to everything if one bothered to search for it. But interpreting his own emotions was often akin to interpreting a foreign language he had only heard in passing once or twice: frustrating and often futile.

Coming out of his thoughts for a moment, Thrawn reached out and tucked a stray lock of hair away from Eli’s face. The young man shifted slightly in his sleep, his head tilting a fraction as if to follow the light touch of his hand. With a small smile, Thrawn combed his fingers back through Eli’s hair, giving him the touch he craved and watching as something in Eli’s features smoothed out. He wasn’t entirely certain when he had begun to do that. Physical contact had always been another area of difficulty for him. But touching Eli felt natural.

Maybe it would have been different with someone else. Perhaps he would have seen it coming and put a halt to it before it could develop. He had no doubt that he at least would have made the attempt. The notion of love had always been a daunting one to him. Terrifying, if he were being completely honest with himself. If he couldn’t understand a simple feeling of discontent in himself, how could he ever hope to understand something as indefinable and alien as the concept of love?

It had been both relieving and unsettling to learn that there was nothing to understand. It was simply something he _knew_. The way his lungs knew how to breathe and his mind knew how to sleep, his heart knew how to love.

And that had come as a surprise to no one more than himself.

**Author's Note:**

> And thus begins phase two of pulling myself out of my writer's paralysis. 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


End file.
